Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The biofuel surge of the early Obama era exacerbated widespread food shortages and caused severe trouble in poor countries, according to a United Nations report. That disaster success story, however, hasn’t stopped Biden from flirting with biofuels for greener aviation.
Biden officials, airline CEOs, are considering breaks on environmentally friendly fuel
From DAVID KOENIG
The executives of the country’s largest passenger and cargo airlines met with key government officials in Biden on Friday to discuss reducing emissions from aircraft and promoting incentives for low-carbon aviation fuels.
The White House said the meeting with climate advisor Gina McCarthy and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also addressed economic policy and containing the spread of COVID-19 – travel was a vector for the virus. However, industry officials said emissions dominated the discussion.
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby has asked administrative officials to incentivize sustainable aviation fuel and technology to remove carbon from the atmosphere. In December, United announced it had invested an undisclosed amount in a carbon capture company that is partially owned by Occidental Petroleum.
A United Nations aviation group has concluded that biofuels will remain a tiny source of aviation fuel for several years. Some environmentalists would prefer the Biden government to impose stricter emissions standards on airplanes than taking breaks for biofuels.
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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/scott-kirby-climate-climate-change-airlines-pete-buttigieg-6bed112b680f66762efe9a6ebf476c31
Here’s what the UN is saying about the Obama push in 2009 on biofuels:
Chapter IV
The global food crises
When the global financial and economic crisis hit, a large number of developing countries were still affected by the economic and social effects of the previous global food crisis. In 2008 the grain price index reached a high 2.8 times higher than in 2000; in July 2010 it was 1.9 times higher than in 2000 (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2010a; 2010b).
Prior to the global financial crisis, concerns about increased food and energy prices were the focus of public and media attention. Global leaders and policymakers were concerned about the potential welfare impact of the sharp rise in food prices such as rice, corn, wheat and soybeans, and global food security. There have been concerns about how higher food prices adversely affect low-income consumers and poverty reduction efforts, as well as the political and social stability of poor countries and food-importing countries. These concerns have subsequently increased with the social tension, civil unrest and food riots that have broken out in several countries.
However, attention to the fragile and unsustainable global food security situation has been moved from the focus of international concerns and replaced by the global financial and economic crisis and subsequent pressures for budget cuts and austerity measures in most of the major industrialized countries. Unfortunately, the food crisis is far from over as prices have risen again since 2009 (Johnston and Bargawi, 2010). The poor remain particularly at risk, as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has repeatedly warned. The FAO’s world food price index was at a record high at the time of writing in early 2011, above the previous all-time high of June 2008. As a result, rising food prices have driven an estimated 44 million people into poverty (World Bank, 2011). In addition, the food riots in Mozambique in September 2010 and recent protests in several North African countries appear to reflect the ongoing impact of high food prices on the poor and other vulnerable groups.
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Higher energy prices and demand for biofuels
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As the search for cheaper energy sources continues, the demand for biofuels has increased. A major source of the increasing demand for food crops is the production of bioethanol and biodiesel. Developed countries provide $ 13 billion in subsidies and protection annually to encourage the production of biofuels that have diverted 120 million tons of grain from human consumption for conversion into fuel. In the US alone, 119 million of the 416 million tons of grain produced in 2009 went to ethanol distilleries. The grain would have been enough to feed 350 million people for a year! An unpublished report from the World Bank stated this Biofuels forced global food prices by 75 percent– far more than previously assumed (Chakrabortty, 2008).
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Read more: https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/rwss/docs/2011/chapter4.pdf (PDF copy here)
Poor countries were in trouble as early as 2008 before Obama took office. Obama didn’t start the biofuel push, but Obama poured fuel on the fire by pushing for more biofuel mandates, which further constrained the supply of much-needed food to the world market.
To his credit, Obama was also the president who withdrew from the abyss when it became clear how much damage biofuel mandates could do.
Fast forward to 2021, food supplies seem pretty stable today. But as the 2008/10 crisis shows, we should not take this stability and abundance for granted.
The United Nations believes the 2008-10 crisis was caused by crop failures, fuel shortages, commodity speculation and biofuel mandates.
How are the conditions that led to the 2008/10 crisis compared to today? In my opinion, the parallels are too close for comfort.
Much of the world has cut interest rates and passed stimulus programs to try to prevent another Great Depression by flooding the markets with cheap money. Low interest rates increase the risk of speculative commodity bubbles such as those that occurred in 2007/08.
Biden has tried to restrict fuel supplies by banning federal rentals. Over time, this will lead to a surge in US fuel imports and upward pressure on global fuel prices.
China experienced significant crop failures in 2020 because a significant portion of its arable land on the Yangtze River was washed away by the great flood. Many taxes and infrastructures were also destroyed. China is reportedly buying record quantities of food in the international market. There is a risk that the Chinese food frenzy will last for a long time and put pressure on poor countries that have to import food.
Now, Biden seems to be flirting with biofuel mandates.
A substantial rebound of Biden biofuel over everything that’s happening could be all that is required to fully restore the conditions that led to the 2008-10 food crisis.
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